Differential content must be fresh, not stale. It must be formative, not repetitive, it must be interesting and varied, not boring. It must have range, scope and depth. It should aim to generate a certain amount of friction in critical thinking and thought provocation as any social entrepreneurship venture should.

Are you a social entrepreneur working to bring about change in the world? A founder resolved to solve a major problem, striving day in and day out for impact? An innovator fighting to right wrongs?

If that sounds anything like you, you will need to produce better content quality than the ‘regular’ entrepreneurs.

“How so?” you snipe, swearing under your breath. It’s hard enough keeping up already.

I know but hear me out.

1. People have no clue what social entrepreneurship is

There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about what social entrepreneurship is and isn’t. I know it sounds cool to say you work in the ‘social impact space” or that you are ‘an impact investor’ but, sad to say, most people don’t get what that is.

You have to explain it through your content. Most understand – not-for-profit like NGOs or foundations or companies and corporations that are focused purely on profit despite a nice socially responsible marketing tagline for their branding.

But social entrepreneurship? Nah.

Most of the misunderstanding comes from that pesky word ‘social’, so people think you are saving children from ‘abusive homes’ or that you’ve gone off to chain yourself to a melting iceberg up north. Misunderstandings come too from the muddled concept of ‘impact’ that we use instead of the more familiar goal of profit.

“Social entrepreneur, huh? So, you are a charity”

“No, man. We’re all about impact.”

2. Grabbing attention is hard

We constantly hear about how distracted people are. Distracted from what? Attention is a limited resource in every human or animal. Where people direct their attention depends on many things. If you are reading the latest climate report, are you distracted? I think not. If you are deep into War & Peace, are you distracted? Nope.

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t believe everyone is distracted. Millions of people are struggling to survive, millions working long hours, studying, reading, and millions are helping others, and so many others are trying to make a difference.

I have seen few people staring at butterflies all day. Anyway, haven’t we made butterflies extinct already?

If you are a social entrepreneur, the people whose attention you are trying to grab – your target people – may be already super engaged with the same cause you are fighting for, say, the climate crisis. Perhaps they are already very active about something they believe in that aligns with your thing. The challenge is to channel their attention to your thing because until you get their attention to buy into your project, initiative, or venture, they stay interested in the general cause or idea but do not become closer to becoming your user, your client or an active supporter of your thing.

As a social entrepreneur, you must make enough money to survive long enough to scale to increase your impact. So it is truly a matter of life and death (business venture-wise) to first attract your people’s attention and then get them to do something that aligns with your social impact business goals. AKA Call to action

3. You can’t afford content that is ‘Same old, same old

Yes, it’s annoying that you need effective differentiation strategies to establish a strong competitive advantage. Unfortunately, forging forth with a noble cause is not enough. If only…

Human beings have limited resources, and I am talking about the big three – attention, time and money – and many others – villains and heroes alike – are clamouring to take as much of those resources from them as possible. You are competing by default.

There is no point in being unique if no one has even heard of you or your venture. If you are doing something that other people are also doing, you will have to literally beat them at their own game. If they have been established longer than you, already have sales, and are bigger, then you must fight and differentiate with your content as well as your products or services.

If you have no seed money, no juicy marketing budget, that is no excuse. Content creation is free. It’s about having the right strategy, not the biggest budget or the most content. A little well-thought-out content that distinguishes itself is better than a lot of same old, same old.

Many social entrepreneurs bang the same drum too loudly, leading to the content becoming too predictable and over heard, like a great song you listened to far many times and ended up hating!

Differential content must be fresh, not stale, formative, not repetitive, it must be interesting and varied, and not boring. Above all, it must have sufficient range, scope and depth to generate a certain amount of friction in critical thinking and thought provocation as any social entrepreneurship venture should.

Preaching to the choir is easy peasy. Generating real beneficial impact means directing your content just as much to those who couldn’t care less as to those who are already engaged.

To do this, you will need strategic content that integrates the different perspectives of the issue you are concerned with and articulates well-reasoned, well-rounded arguments.

In my opinion, social impact entrepreneurs have even more of a responsibility to address all sides of the matter through high-quality content.

If you want to chat with me about any of this. Please feel free. I am here to help.

You know what to do.